1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a clutch apparatus that is mounted on various equipments including a recording apparatus, such as an ink jet recording apparatus, a copying machine, or a facsimile, and to a recording material conveyance apparatus that is provided with the clutch apparatus, and further to a recording apparatus.
2. Related Art
Patent Document 1 discloses a clutch member that switches between a clutch engaged state between a toothed portion and a ratchet gear and a clutch non-engaged state therebetween as it swings, and that transmits rotating force through a spur gear and a feeding roller gear to a feeding roller. A recessed portion is formed in a cam face of a cam provided on a feeding roller shaft. When a cam follower is fitted into the recessed portion by the urging force of a hopper spring, the feeding roller shaft slightly pivots. Thereby, the spur gear slightly pivots, while the clutch member slightly swings. Thus, the toothed portion is reliably spaced apart from the clutch member.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-2014
However, in a clutch apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1, switching from the clutch engaged state to the clutch non-engaged state may be smoothly performed. However, when the clutch apparatus is designed to be small for a small-sized printer, a gear tooth of the ratchet gear itself becomes small. Thus, in the clutch engaged state, an engaged state between the toothed portion and the ratchet gear becomes unreliable and, hence, tooth jump has sometimes occurred. As a result, the timing of a member, such as a cam, is off, and there has been an inconvenience, for example, in which the feeding timing of a sheet of paper is influenced.